The Lebanon express. (Lebanon, Linn County, Or.) 1887-1898, 1887-04-23
QUEER OCCUPATIONS.
The Peculiar Ways I'm which Some New
Workers Make Good Living.


Workers Make Good Living.
New York has not attained the unique
distinction recently boasted by Paris of
maintaining beggar factory for maim-
ing little children, so as TO render them
objects OF pity. Neither has it yet
reached up to London in the possession
of necessary stores" wherein every
earthly thing in use ~ man is kept m
sale. There is an audacious Teuten
near Chatham Square who keeps hand
organs in mischief by repairing them.
He assumes to replenish them with new
tunes, but, of course. that is a fiction,
for no hand-organ was ever heard to
play any but bald-headed and middle
aged music.
Two courageous New Yorkers follow
the useful but unpoetic business of
hanging their fellow-citizens. They
are not prejudiced in favor of New
Yorkers. but are easily persuaded to
hang men elsewhere throughout the
Union. 1t is always pretended that no
one knows their names and that only
the sheriff Of this county has their adj
dresses. One is Hebrew, dubbed
'.Isaacs," and the other is a German,
called ''Minzesheimer;" but the city
always humps them both under the one
name of Joseph b. Atkinson. and under
that name they draw cieir pay. They
rig the gallows and finally cut the rope
Four prosperous citizens earn their
liyelihoods as doctors for the 1ap-dogs
of rich women As rule the only
medicine they use is starvation. They
hag the dear pets into barred boxes
and deprive them of food for four days,
having found out that the usual trouble
with pet dogs is that they are fed ex-
travagantly and Improperly. just east
of the Bowery in a tenement house re-
sides a man whose business is to rent
himself and his Punch and Judy show
to children's parties in the brown-stone
wards. A person on the Bowery keeps
six or eight girls busy framing wreaths
and pictures of tombstones. whereon
are set forth the virtues of deceased
New Yorkers. He follows where the
death notices in the papers lead him
and works upon the feelings of the grief
stricken families.
Another man is making fortune by
carrying Off all the waste and refuse the
city will not remove. such as builders
leavings. dirt from cellar diggings and
so on The builders pay him to take it,
and then he sells il in the suburbs fol
| filling in suuken lands.
Only one man in town pretends tC
keep photographs of all the notable
| persons in the world. There is no
room for two in the business. Another
citizen sells to public men and corpora
tions clippings from all the newspaper:
that mention them, at FIVE cents clip
ping added to subscription fee eaci
year.
Yet another citizen hunts up eoats-of
arms and pedigrees for all who thinl
theirs have been overlooked. or tha
they may get them from families of tn
same. or nearly the same. names q
their own. This is quite English ant
therefore popular. 1t is said that tn
carriage-makersa are giving away coats
of-arms like chromos.
The trade in painting black eyes wit
a mixture of six parts white paint ant
one part red. now boasts several estab
lishments. 1t is not popularizing tn
black eye, because it only covers up tn
scandal without producing forgetful
ness.
One New Yorker has posted himsel
about all the unclaimed estates il
Christendom. and thus profits by
weakness more general than most folk
imagine.
Another New Yorker searches th
streets at night with a lantern fo
coins and purses dropped during tn
evening.
A woman near the City Hall take
care of the babies whose widowe.
mothers have to go out to work, an,
who check them. like umbrellas. in tn
morning and call for them in the even
ing. Many women in the East Sid
tcnements take care of baby or tw
Cor their neighbors. but this downtown
one is, | think. the only regular saf
baby safe deposit company or storag
warehouse in town.
There is no matrimonial agency o
husbands exchange newspaper her
lust now There have been many, bu
, all have failed. That scheme is not a
, profitable as that of a man l met tn
other day. who told ms he trained valu
, able dogs to come straight back to hin
, as often as he sold them.-,Julian Ralph
| in PhiL1IeEDhin Press